This Time, Next Year
by Long Distance Lovin' Contest
Summary: Carlisle, a married man, receives a mysterious text message at a company party. Then another a year later. Who is texting him and why? AH/AU/M


**Story Title: **This Time, Next Year

**Disclaimer: **Everything Twi belongs to S. Meyer. This story belongs to me.

The story is rated R.

It has an age-gap relationship, but nothing physical happens when the younger party is underaged. So don't panic.

Thank you for your beta-skills, you-know-who. ;)

**-::::-**

I had never liked these parties, but as a board member I had to attend each and every one. At Christmas, they were held at the Masen residence, which, being the CEO's home, was practically a mansion. These 'Harvest parties' were held in the house of another board member, Harry Clearwater.

The house was nice, a large log house at the edge of the Quileute reservation. The best thing was the large garden and the fact that it was close to First Beach. There was always a bonfire at these occasions and they were less formal. It didn't mean I was comfortable here.

My discomfort came from an additional source, I was on the edge tonight and it was not for the usual reason. This anxiety or anticipation, rather, didn't come from having to talk to these people or pretending to be interested in what they had to say.

It all started five years ago.

**-::::-**

_I was standing in the doorway, watching the quiet garden. Most people were still inside and we'd be heading to the bonfire soon. _

_My phone beeped in my pocket and I dug it out. _

_**You have absolutely no idea how hot you look, do you? ~S**_

_I gaped at the text, wondering who the hell this woman was. I assumed she was __at__ the party. Where I was with my wife for heaven's sake... _

_Nervously I glanced around but saw no-one. Not even Esme, though I could hear her laughter from the kitchen where she was talking to Elizabeth Masen, I assumed. _

_S? Was there even a woman whose name started with S in here? Hell... _

_The phone in my hand vibrated shortly._

_**Don't look so shocked, Carlisle. Don't worry...no matter how hot you are there's nothing I can do about it... ~S**_

_Okay so this S was definitely seeing me, but I wasn't seeing her. _

_I turned and walked to the kitchen where I was promptly given the job of carrying the coolers down to the beach._

_Esme could tell something was wrong, but she didn't ask. The rest of the evening went perfectly well without more texts from 'S'. _

_I couldn't deny I was excited though. I was thirty-three and I'd been married to Esme for nearly ten years. Things weren't that exciting anymore and we were already sliding towards being best friends who just happened to live together. Having someone call me hot was...it seemed nearly impossible for some reason. _

_To my surprise, I was disappointed when S didn't text me again. At first I was thinking she'd text me and ask to meet me or something, but there were no new text messages. Naturally I didn't text her back. Why would I? I was a married man. Even receiving those two texts seemed like...cheating somehow. _

_If S was __the__ wife or girlfriend of a colleague, she'd certainly text me again at the Christmas party, right? _

_Wrong. _

_I was disappointed when there were no messages. Neither did I get any at the Spring party which was held at our house. _

_Nothing. _

_So maybe she wasn't interested after all? _

**-::::-**

Eventually I forgot about the messages.

Until the next year...

_Harvest Party. The nervous tingle that had lasted for months after last year's party was invading my stomach again. This was where _those_ messages had been delivered to my phone._

_I was on edge and Esme could tell. Nothing seemed different from the previous company parties, though. _

_And then..._

_**Missed me? ~S**_

_I stared at the phone in shock, trying to follow the conversation of Eddie Masen and our host Harry. The chief of police was there too, Charlie Swan, and he looked bored as hell. Somehow this situation, having someone text me like this with the chief there, it __put__ me even more on edge._

_I had to reply._

_**Who are you and why are you doing this?**_

_A few seconds later there was a message symbol on the screen again. I swallowed nervously and clicked to open the text._

_**Ahh, but wouldn't you like to know... As for why...you're hot. I want you. But I won't do anything about it, I'm not after married men.**_

_**Oh so what's this then? Texting me, second year in a row now? **__I felt snappy and it showed in my message but I didn't care. She was __teasing me__. _

_**I'm waiting. **_

_**For**__** what? **__Curiosity killed the cat..._

_**You'll see... Right now though, fantasies are all I have. **_

_I nearly jumped __off__ the chair and the three other men in the little study looked at me inquisitively. _

"_Eh...just going to go grab a drink." I said and where Harry and Eddie didn't seem to notice or care, Charlie looked at me suspiciously. He didn't say anything either._

_As I was getting my beer from the fridge, ignoring the women who were chatting away, I made my way to the back porch of Harry's house._

_**Where did you go? I can't see you anymore.**_

_So she was there, watching me then, for real._

_**Needed some air. **__I pressed the buttons and then took in a deep breath. The beers and scotch I had consumed were buzzing in my body a little, that's my only excuse. For I added __**Tell me about these fantasies? **__Before sending the text._

_She took her__, but then the text came and the phone lit up, illuminating me in the dark corner of the porch._

_**I have dreams...of being in your arms. Just thinking about kissing you makes my heart beat faster. I want you, Carlisle. But I can't have you...yet.**_

_As I was trying to battle the arousal I felt at reading those words, another text popped up._

_**Ahh, there you are. **_

_So she could see me again? It was tricky, all I could see around me was darkness and the few lights of the garden, but I was sure she wasn't there. The windows behind me showed the kitchen __empty, __now that__ of the women__, and a part of the hall with the stairs to the second floor..._

_And then it hit me. _

_The only place where I could have been seen at all those times I had gotten texts from S was the little balcony inside the house. The house had some interesting architecture and that balcony upstairs was one __of the special details__._

_So S knew the house, __it was only here that she texted me__and..._

_I almost dropped the phone. Suddenly I knew who this 'S' was. Because the only person in the house with a name starting with S and a good reason to be upstairs was Harry's son, Seth. _

_He was seventeen now. He'd been sixteen last year and... Oh god..._

_I felt sick, it was disturbing I had even... Oh my god..._

_**So you figured it out. **_

_I stared at the text and tried to find some sort of clue, something in my jumbled mind that would tell me what to do, how to react...anything!_

_**It's okay... I know you're straight and married. And to you I'm a kid. **_

_The text surprised me somewhat. I was thinking sh...he wouldn't text me again now that I knew who he was. Turning my head I looked inside the house and up to the balcony. _

_He was crouching there, all long limbs and sad brown eyes. His long black hair had fallen over his shoulder and he looked so sad. And then he was gone._

_I didn't get more messages from him that evening and I had no idea what to tell him, what to say. _

_To my total shock it didn't matter he was a young man. I was still...intrigued and somewhat turned on. But the shame I felt now was different. What if Esme found out? Or Harry? Or Charlie?_

_At least it would have been less complicated to be caught texting an adult woman. But a young boy? I shook my head in disgust. I wasn't disgusted with him but myself. It was me who was __the__ adult here. Me who needed to make the decisions. I chose to not reply to his message._

This time the memory of those sad brown eyes didn't leave me for a very long time. I knew now there would be no messages until the next party at the Clearwater house, if even then. The thought made me disappointed and then even more torn about the reasons why I'd be disappointed and...

It was vicious cycle. All I knew was that I had had texts from a seventeen year old boy, and for the first time in years, I was excited.

**-::::-**

The next year the party was different. As soon as we entered the house, Harry started boasting about his kids, how Leah was in college, how Seth was taking an extra course in photography.

Because of this, Seth wasn't in the house that night.

Somehow his absence made all the difference. I was bad tempered, I drank too much and I wasn't fun. Esme dragged me home before midnight, claiming to have a headache to take the focus from me.

**-::::-**

The year Seth was nineteen, he was at the Harvest Party again. This time he was a guest, as he had done some photography for the company's advertisements.

_I was oddly nervous and he seemed to avoid me. He didn't __so__ much as look at me. But I sure as hell looked at him when I could get away with it._

_The long limbs were muscular now. He was wearing a tshirt with the company logo on it and a pair of very nicely fitted jeans. His feet were bare and I knew his father didn't like that but Seth didn't seem to care. _

_His long hair was hanging around his shoulders and his smile was radiant, his dimples pronounced and... He was gorgeous. _

"_He's turned out nicely, hasn't he?" I heard my wife's voice next to me and nearly jumped._

"_Jesus, Esme..." I gasped and she giggled a bit. _

"_I've seen how you look at him. I'm not blind, Carlisle. And it's okay... I've known this about you for years," she said quietly, tugging me with her to the back garden. _

_My mouth was hanging open and I was too shocked to reply._

"_Carlisle, darling...I know things have been less than passionate between us for a long long time now. But each year Seth has been inside that house," she nodded towards the house in the distance when we got to the back of the garden, "you've taken me home and made love to me more fiercely than in months or even years before... Last year was different, but it took me a while to notice why. Tonight... Tonight you'll have to let me be. Because now I know it's not me who coaxes these emotions out of you."__T__h__ere was a sadness in her eyes. _

"_Esme..." I really didn't know what to say, because as I listened to her I knew it was the truth. _

"_I don't know what it is that happened between you __two__ and when it started, other than it was three years ago when you were different the first time, and I'm not sure if I want to know... But Carlisle, I can't live like this. I'll give us a year, okay? Tonight you can do what ever you want, but a year from tomorrow we'll try to make this work." The determination in her tone was the same kind of sort of __resignation__ I'd heard only once before; the day when she told me we'd stop trying to conceive, that the disappointments had been too much for her to handle. _

"_Can I tell you one thing__?" I asked and saw her worry her bottom lip before nodding hesitantly._

"_Nothing has happened, ever. __He started__ texting me three years ago. Never outside these parties." I hoped she'd believe__ that it __was the truth._

"_Okay... Well...maybe you should text him? Because I'm serious, Carlisle. You have tonight and then you'll have another one a year from now, but not before." __She __smiled before tiptoeing to kiss my cheek._

_And just like that she walked away from me and back into the house. I turned around to wal__k __in the opposite direction__, down to First Beach from the little path that started from the side of the garden. I needed to think._

_I was half way down the path when my phone buzzed._

_**You went out with her but only she came back in. She looks distraught. Where are you? ~S**_

_I kept walking. _

_**Carlisle, please. The way she looked at me...she knows, doesn't she? This is my doing, don't shut me out now.**_

_I walked to the rocks in the distance. Knowing where I was headed in the moonlight helped. When I found my favorite spot, a large boulder with a strangely smooth top, I climbed up and sat down. _

_There were sounds from the bonfire on the other side of the beach, I was in no mood for company._

_**Carlisle... **_

_Sighing, I pressed the reply button._

_**Beach, left side. **_

_I sent the message and it took no more than five minutes for him to get there. He must have been running._

_Seth said nothing, instead he just walked to the opposite side of the rock and climbed up to sit next to me. _

"_She wants us to work on our marriage... Give it another year," I said quietly. I had no idea why I was telling him this, he was still a kid and I was way too old to even be sitting with him here._

"_I...know you have problems. Mom __has__ told me, they're friends, aren't they?" Seth asked and glanced at me sideways._

_Nodding in reply, I sighed. _

"_I'm sorry...for what ever trouble I've caused." Seth said and I shook my head. The movement caught his eye and he turned to look at me._

"_It's...it hasn't been good in years. I wasn't much older than you are now when we got married. It's been a long time and a lot has happened... You...this..." I gestured between us, "this is something I didn't know I had in me...but she knew..." I rubbed my face with my palms._

_Seth swallowed hard enough for me to hear._

"_I'm surprised she didn't come slap me or something..." he chuckled in a tone I couldn't quite decipher._

"_She told me I could have tonight to figure this out and then we'd try again...for another year." I forced the words out there and closed my eyes._

"_She must really love you..." Seth said quietly and we sat in silence for a while. Then I felt the heat from his fingers near my cheek and my breath hitched with the shock the simple anticipation of a touch sent through my body._

"_I never lied... You're gorgeous, Carlisle. I dream of you and... I've had boyfriends but... They're just not you," he said in a tone that suggested he hadn't meant to say the words out loud. They were like a confession of some sort._

"_Seth...I can't," I whispered and leaned away before he could touch me. _

_The hurt in his eyes made me cringe inside. _

"_I'm not rejecting you... I just can't. Not now. Not when I'm married and..." I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair agitatedly. _

"_So...I suppose I'll see you next year then..." he said a bit gruffly and got to his feet. He had jumped down and was walking away before I could react._

**-::::-**

He was wrong. We didn't see each other the next year. He was in college then, in Seattle, and wouldn't come home for the party. Harry was talking about him and my heart hurt. It was like I knew Seth somehow, yet we hadn't spoken a word in a year. Hell, we hadn't spoken that many words...ever!

_One Year Ago_

_Esme was still with me, at the party, but she said it would be the last one she'__d__ attend with me. The divorce papers had been signed._

_It had nothing to do with Seth, though. Both Esme and myself knew it. But she was there, comforting me, when I realized Seth wasn't around. _

_Everyone around us knew about the divorce by now, but Esme was their friend too so nobody questioned her presence there. It wasn't until I found myself sitting in the same dark corner I had sat in three years ago, when I knew I had more feelings towards Seth than I wanted to admit._

_I took my phone out and looked at it numbly. Willing it to life, I sat there for a moment. Before I could stop myself, I was texting him._

_**I miss you.**_

_His reply took time. I knew he wasn't in the house and for all I knew he might have been busy at the campus. Who knew, maybe he was with a boyfriend or... The thought hurt me more than I wanted to know. Maybe he had moved on? Despite what he had said last year. Maybe he'd found someone who was more than me? Who could give him more than I could. _

_He should have...he was twenty now. A grown man... I was seventeen years older than him. What was I thinking..._

_**I wish I was there. I take it the trial didn't work? ~S**_

_Sighing in relief, I felt myself smile widely. _

_**No, we signed the papers last week. How are you?**_

_The response took a while again._

_**I'm sorry about the divorce. I'm a bit busy, working at the campus café for extra cash. **_

_**Oh, I'm sorry to bother you then. **__I replied hastily. I didn't want him in trouble._

_**Don't be silly. So...what are you wearing? ;)**_

_I guffawed, glad I didn't have any beer in my mouth. Realizing I found this playful Seth quite interesting, I decided to play along._

_**A dark blue tshirt and black leather pants. Yes, I know. Midlife crisis...**_

_The response came in half a minute. He must have taken a break._

_**Holy hell, Carlisle! You trying to kill me? I'm wearing... **_

_As I was reading the message, a symbol for a picture message appeared on my phone and I swallowed hard. _

_I clicked the button and stared at the picture. _

_It was one of those pictures taken through a mirror, but I didn't mind. Part of his hair was up, probably to keep it from getting in his way while he worked. His shirt with the café logo on it, was yellow but somehow it fit him very nicely. I could tell he was wearing low riding jeans and because he was slightly sideways to the mirror, I could tell they clung to his ass perfectly. _

_Startled, I realized I was getting hard by looking at the boy in the picture. His smirk was knowing, like he knew __w__hat the image would do to me. _

_Quickly I texted back._

_**No, but you're certainly trying to make me cum. **_

_So now I was suddenly _sexting_ with him? _Seriously_, Carlisle? I wanted to kick myself for doing something this stupid but..._

_**If you were here, or I was there, then sure... **_

_Yep, I was definitely hard now. _

_**Seth...seriously...**_

_**You should send me a picture of yourself. And since I'm not there, the tradition is broken and now I can text you when ever I want..**_

_**You're right. Besides technically I'm almost divorced now too. **_

_**Almost but not quite. This makes me wonder though...**_

_**What? **_

_**I wish I could meet you. Now that things are...different. But I'm leaving in a week to study abroad. I'll be in England for six months and then studying and working in San Francisco until next fall. **_

_My stomach dropped. But I needed to make sure. __**You're leaving for a year?**_

_**Pretty much. Though...there's always the internet... ;)**_

**-::::-**

After the party we texted, and sexted and Skyped and emailed almost every day.

Esme saw the change in me and kept giving me this Mona Lisa-smile every now and then but never commented. She moved out about two weeks after the party and I attended the Christmas party alone.

The winter was long last year. The spring even longer. Nothing was as long as the summer...

It was funny how I was almost happy with the way things were. So I was away from Seth physically, but I learned more about him every day.

He was creative, funny, loving, sexy, mischievous, cheeky, romantic, intelligent, witty... Perfect.

I had had this strange thing going on with him for the last five years if I was completely honest, but I was yet to touch him.

I'd spent countless hours over the last year in front of a webcam. We'd gone from chatting to pleasuring ourselves in front of the camera. At first even that was done with the camera directed above waist, the only thing we could see was each other's faces or arms moving and chests heaving... Then one night he had smirked at me and turned the camera angle. I still had no eyes for other men, but when I saw his cock in the webcam my mouth watered. That had to be a sign of something...

Now, months later, I had seen him fuck himself with a dildo a few times; something that never failed to make me cum. I was tired of not being able to touch him though. I wanted to run my hands through his long black hair and kiss his perfect, almost too full for a man lips.

I hadn't been with anyone else and I knew neither had he. He had called me once, in the middle of the night, telling me how he had almost given into someone's advances while in a club with his friends. My heart clenched, until he told me he couldn't do it. Not even if he wanted to. He needed to know how it felt to be touched by me, before he could ever let anyone else touch him. Odds were, he had said, that when he finally felt my fingers on him, _in_ him, he'd never want anyone again.

My fingers twitched as I stood there with my beer bottle. It was the evening of the Harvest party again. I knew he was upstairs but I couldn't go there. His dad didn't know about our relationship and somehow we had agreed not to make it public yet. We need to be sure the chemistry was truly real and not just something we had come up with.

So I listened to Charlie chat about how his daughter Bella was coming to visit for Christmas and nodded a few times when I thought it was needed. My phone buzzed.

Casually I reached for it from my pocket and pressed a button. I nearly dropped my beer bottle when I saw the picture; another photo of my Seth through the mirror. The grin he was sporting was maddening, cheeky and just perfect. His hair cascaded down to his front, the picture cut low enough for me to see the beginning of the perfect 'V' of his hips and his sculpted abs he had worked so hard for.

"Carlisle?" Charlie asked and I almost dropped the bottle again, "Everything okay?" he asked worriedly and I blushed.

"Oh...yes, nothing wrong...I...erm...I need another drink I think..." I said, fumbling away from the chief who looked too curious for my taste and practically jogged to the kitchen.

I grabbed another bottle from the fridge, as usual, while texting with my other hand.

**You mean little git... I was talking to Charlie!**

The message buzzed to me in less than twenty seconds.

**Go to downstairs bathroom. Now.**

I didn't question him, instead I went to the bathroom at the back of the house and locked the door behind me. The bathrooms were on the same spot, so when I heard a light tapping from the ceiling, I knew it was Seth upstairs.

**I'm here. What do you have in mind? **I texted him and my phone vibrated in my hand, flashing his name. He was calling me from upstairs?

"Hello, my love..." he almost purred the words to my ear.

The sound went straight to my groin, making my stomach flutter and my cock began to rise to the occasion.

"You're being very naughty, you know that, right?" I asked, my voice sounding husky even to my own ears.

Seth chuckled and I looked around to find somewhere to sit. The bathroom was spacious and there was an old armchair in one corner for what ever reason.

I walked to it and sat down, feeling how my jeans were tighter than before and groaned when the denim pressed against my cock.

"Yes, I am but you're hard just like me...and you love it..." he said in a husky tone that I knew very well.

The thought of him being above me, in the same house, seemed somehow impossible.

"Fuck...Seth..."

"In only a few hours you're going to excuse yourself and I'll come downstairs, asking you for a ride into town... And then you're taking me to your place and you get to fuck me...finally..."

I whimpered, pathetically, as I balanced the phone between my shoulder and ear and tugged my fly open.

"Before you get to fuck me though," he said and I could hear his breathing picking up, he was touching himself too, "I want to suck you...you know how much I love your cock, don't you Carlisle?" he breathed into my ear via the phone.

I had spent too many hours, hearing his voice, knowing I wasn't able to touch him even though I wanted to so badly... Without doing anything consciously I was suddenly pumping my cock, listening to him whisper dirty things into my ear.

"Are you getting close?" he asked and I think I managed to say something affirmative. Seth chuckled, "You know how much I love it when you're all flustered and about to cum, don't you baby...?"

I was so close and then suddenly there was a loud knock on the bathroom door.

"Stop hogging the fucking toilet, I need to take a leak!"

"Fucking hell!" I hissed and the phone fell from my hand, ending up between my thigh and the armrest.

"Give me a sec!" I yelled to Eddie Masen and tried to get my rock hard cock back into my too tight jeans.

When I finally managed to conceal my erection and get the phone, I heard Seth laughing his ass off on the other end, hell, I was almost sure I could hear his laughter through the ceiling.

"I'm coming upstairs," I pretty much growled into the phone and his laughter hitched.

Pressing the red button I walked out of the bathroom, the drunken Eddie looking at me like I was nuts as I sneaked back into the hall.

It was time to get my hands on my boy and to hell with the consequences!

**-::::-**

**A/N:** Please review!  
If you liked it, vote for it in the contest.  
Voting begins July 7th.


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